Living off the side of the mountain means you sometimes get pretty unpredictable weather. A few times a year we get a strong wind storm that would take down a dead tree or two. While they were always far enough away from the house to cause damage, I was concerned a branch would fall on a kid.
We paid a professional arborist to come in, evaluate the trees & take down the ones that were dangerous and invasive. Luckily, the invasive ones were only three Sumac trees. The other 19 were dead Ash trees. And as pretty as Ash trees are, we weren’t going to take the chance of someone getting crushed.
Enter woodworking opportunity galore!
Read on for the story & more pictures..
After the trees were cut down, we took the small stuff & rented an industrial wood chipper. We made a pile about 15’ wide, 15’ long & 6’ deep of wood chips! I started the multi-month process of cutting up logs with my chainsaw. While slowly making wood cookies, gems began to appear in the pile. I found a log with a “crotch” of wood that I thought would look really interesting if I could cut it with the grain instead of across the grain.
I purchased an Alaskan Saw Mill attachment for a chainsaw, but my chainsaw wasn’t designed to handle that kind of load and the bar wasn’t long enough for the width of the wood. I found a guy on Craigslist that was selling a restored 88cc Husqvarna chainsaw with a 36” bar for $700. It is a beast of a saw, but considering a new one was double that price, and getting a saw mill to cut the wood would have been at least $1k, it was a no-brainer.
The first picture you see below is after cutting the log with a regular cross-cutting chain. After that, I bought a ripping chain & it was a LOT easier to cut the wood.
This was my first attempt with the ripping chain. Not as smooth as it could be, but still faster & easier than the cross cutting chain. 
Getting better.. 
Look at the color variations. A lot of the lighter areas faded as the wood dried out, but not entirely.
It’s interesting how the grain pops when it’s still wet.
I don’t have a draw knife to remove bark, but this tree had been dead so long, it didn’t matter. I removed the bark with a 1” chisel. It took a while and dulled the chisel a bit, but it was interesting to see all the layers of the outer tree.
Working the Wood
My plan from the beginning was to make two slabs because the tree was big enough and we have two couches. I started by bringing the first slab into the garage after I was reasonably sure all the bugs had left.
I put it on the table and went to town on shaving away the roughness with two hand planes I recently bought. The first plane was an 8” “Jack plane” & the other was a Stanley No. 4. Both did a good job at different points in the project. The Jack plane has a great handle that makes getting into a rhythm very easy. The Stanley is a one handed plane & I used that because it was easier to keep a sharp edge (I think the Jack plane needs a better iron).
This was the first time I used hand planes. It took a while to get used to. It was super easy to get clean shavings on the sides of the slabs, but the faces were much harder. The plane would grab a piece of wood and it would take a much bigger piece that just a small shaving. I tried every direction, but I found diagonally across the grain was the best (blue & green arrows below).
Several days later, with wood shaving up to my ankles, it started to look smoother.
If you look closely, you can see the spots where the hand planes ripped the wood instead of shaving it. I love how the grain centers around where the wood began to separate into two branches. Nature is amazing.
Pro-tip: wear a cut-resistant glove. If nothing else, it protects you from splinters.
I got one side of the first table done, and decided to see what the underside would look like. On the right side, you can see some discoloration. I think that’s called spalting. It’s caused by fungus beginning to eat the dead tree. Not only is this my favorite part about this piece of wood, but it also makes me feel good that we had professional arborists evaluate our trees to only cut down the ones that we needed to.
A close-up shows how the hand plane cuts when it isn’t quite sharp enough. This made me buy a plane sharpening stone. It helped, but once you have a sharp edge, you quickly realize how dull the edge is an hour later. Sharpen, shave, repeat.
Smooth, but even?
Not even a little. I watched countless youtube.com videos. There are so many tricks & tips on how professionals get tables looking so even. Of course, with massive machines, it can be pretty easy. But I don’t have any of that. So I used my level to see how much the wood bowed. As you can see, I had a long way to go with my hand plane on the right side to make it even.
I never did get it quite perfect. This slab came from the outer part of the tree. Which makes it more prone to bowing and twisting. See the graphic below that I discovered online. 
I’m writing this article about 6 months after finishing the tables. I will say this slab in particular has bowed more than it is in the picture above. I went into this project knowing that would probably happen and I’m ok with that. It was my first coffee table ever. Not just the first one I ever made, but the first one I’ve ever owned. It would be amazing if it were perfect, but it shows a lot of character and it came from our own backyard!
That same slab kept getting smoother. That bottom leg was especially hard to even out.
I finally decided I had planed enough of the one slab. That was mid-winter and the second slab was buried under a few inches of snow. I had to wait a bit for the snow to melt and the wood to dry out again. So I started sanding the first slab. I started with my belt sander because it was still quite rough and I wasn’t getting it any smoother with my limited hand plane skills.
I had been using the same sanding belt for several projects, so it didn’t take long for it to rip. I ordered two ceramic belts from Home Depot. The first one promptly ripped, and I put too much pressure on the second one and it ripped a couple days later. I asked for advice on a wood working group and they recommended https://www.woodworkingshop.com. The belts and sanding disks from them were high quality.
When the belt sander had done all it could do, I bought a random orbital sander. This was turning into a very expensive project, but I told myself it was worth it. Especially because it was an especially cold winter. I started with 80 grit sanding discs, then 120 grit, then 220. The Dewalt cordless sander lasted about 30 minutes per charge, so it took about four days to sand each side.
Check it out!
The shot above was after I hand planed the sides and tried to chamfer the edge. I didn’t like how it looked, so I created a rounded edge with the sander. The top is super smooth though!
Slab #2
The second slab went much faster because I used the ripping chain.
Picking out legs & their positions
We ordered legs from https://www.diyhairpinlegs.com. They had a big selection at reasonable prices. We purchased 16” legs (which is perfect if the slab is 2” thick). After the slabs were sanded, we tested the legs in different positions. The legs were sold in pairs, so I was pretty sure we wanted a four leg setup. 
Ultimately, we picked D for the positions on both tables.
Finished!
We even cleaned up the living room! During this project, two cats we had for 15 years passed away. To make matters even worse, we were living through the pandemic of 2020, and my anxiety was giving me a very hard time. A friend pointed out how this project was especially fitting. The wood started out very rough. The more I worked on the wood, like my anxiety, the smoother both became. After lots of hard work, the inner beauty appeared. 
Thanks for reading! I hope you’re inspired to go find some wood and do something creative!